


See us through all the suns

by Yuu_chi



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Body Worship, Dorian is pretty gone on him, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Lavellan is more attractive and popular than he realizes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 14:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5051821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian worries that Ronan Lavellan is too beautiful and perfect to truly belong to a man like him. Ronan is oblivious to his own charms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	See us through all the suns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Imanza (jaegersaint)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegersaint/gifts).



> this fic is for my girlfriend who shamelessly encouraged it and the wine that gave me the strength to write it even as I slowly died inside

Over the months of joining the Inquisition Dorian learns two very important things.

The first was that Inquisitor Ronan Lavellan was quite possibly the most attractive being he’d ever set his eyes on. This in itself was not terribly surprising, elves had something of a reputation of being as fine as they come, but it wasn’t just the highs of cheekbones and the pale of his hair to the dark of his skin that made him a pretty picture.

It was the way he talked, the way he smiled, in all the words he spoke. Ronan had a charisma that was positively baffling. When he talked, the people around him yearned to listen, to believe. It wasn’t just because he was Andraste’s herald, the man who walked the fade and lived, but something older, set deeper, a part of him that had been there long before he’d been placed on a pedestal.

The second thing Dorian learns is that when it comes to Inquisitor Ronan Lavellan, Dorian is _not_ the only person to be left breathless.

As Ronan rides into Skyhold, back after a mission that had stretched far longer than Dorian was ever keen to repeat, half the Inquisition gathers outside under one pretense or another. He can see them from the window of the library, busying about with horse brushes or hovering the market stalls even as they sneak increasingly obvious glances at the returning party.

The library has always afforded Dorian a very clear view of the Skyhold gates and he watches as Ronan dismounts his horse with ease, pausing to stroke one hand along her neck fondly before he allows Dennet to lead her away.

Even from this far away Dorian can see he looks a mess. There’s mud on his armour and he seems to be limping, although he’s clearly trying – albeit _badly –_ to hide it.

Still, he’s the most beautiful thing Dorian has ever seen and he can all but feel the swooning sigh the folks in the courtyard give as he passes them by on his way to the castle. As Dorian watches Ronan stops to talk with one of the merchants, then again a moment later to ask something to one of their new recruits. Although he can’t see his expression, Dorian just knows he’ll be wearing that earnest frown, nodding along with all concerns, promising solutions that really shouldn’t be on him to give.

The thing is Ronan isn’t even _aware_ of what his attention does to people, somehow completely misses the way his words leave people starry-eyed and breathless, and Dorian terrifyingly, selfishly, wishes that Ronan would stop _encouraging_ them.

All of a sudden Ronan’s head snaps up and he looks right through the window and right at Dorian. Dorian is hideously grateful that it is much too far for Ronan to see the way he freezes.

Ronan doesn’t wave but he also doesn’t turn back to his conversation for a long, lingering moment. When he finally does Dorian pulls back from the window and sinks into his chair like he’s gone weak at the knees, which is, of course, because he sort of has.

Dorian reaches for the book he’d been skimming while he’d awaited Ronan’s return and sets it back on his lap, working to look invested even though he has never found Orlesian history less interesting than he has in this moment.

After a few minutes there’s the sound of the door downstairs scraping open, Ronan and Solas sharing a warm greeting in Elvhen. Dorian listens as they talk, their voices too soft to reach the upper floor, and he’s overwhelmed in a wave of fondness because Ronan genuinely cares so much for all the people around him that he’s completely incapable of passing any one of them by without stopping for a moment to check in.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Ronan says.

“Give Dorian my greetings,” says Solas in return, and there’s an implication behind that which makes Dorian’s face go a little red.

“Of course,” Ronan says diplomatically and Dorian closes his eyes for a moment as he listens to him mount the steps once more.

When he was a child Dorian often used to lie in bed and listen to the rattle of desert winds at shuttered windows. It was a simple thing but it was something that would always remind him he was home. Now, it’s the gentle clack of Ronan’s footsteps on the library stairs. 

“Dorian,” Ronan greets as he comes into view, and Dorian looks up only to feel his smile slip immediately from his lips.

“You cannot be serious,” he says, and Ronan blinks at him.

“What?”

“ _What_?” Dorian repeats in disbelief as he gets to his feet and sets aside his book. He waves a hand at Ronan, the general disarray of his clothes and the swath of dirty bandage that has gone a little red about the middle sitting on his cheek. “Did you even stop in at a healer before you came up here?”

Ronan glances down at himself and shrugs. “It didn’t seem pressing. I’ll have a bath in a bit, that’ll be enough.”

Dorian stares at him in fond exasperation. “And why, pray tell, didn’t you go for a bath as soon as you returned? Not to say you look anything less than ravishing, of course, but _really,_ Ronan.”

“It’s fine,” Ronan says, and god help him, Dorian could recognize that stubborn dip in his voice anywhere. “It’s just a few scrapes and a bit of dirt. I grew up living off the land, Dorian, I’ve had worse tending to halla.”

“Yes,” Dorian says, trying to keep his patience with this beautiful, infuriating creature before him. “But you’re the Inquisitor now, and it doesn’t do much for your image to be swanning around looking like you’ve just taken a romp with a few terrors in the fallow mire.”

Ronan looks at him with a raised brow and it's part amusement to part resignation. It’s a very Ronan look in that he doesn’t have to say a word to let Dorian know what he’s thinking.

Dorian sighs, working as much fond irritation into it as he can, as he starts bustling Ronan towards the stairs and out of the library. “Why you didn’t stop by your quarters to make yourself presentable first is beyond me.”

“I saw you at the window, I didn’t want to keep you waiting,” says Ronan, and Dorian stumbles a little on the first step.

“I wasn’t _waiting_ ,” he all but blurts, all the smooth Tevinter tact leaving him for a moment.

Ronan shoots him an amused look over his shoulder as they descend the stairs. “Weren’t you?”

Dorian gathers himself. “I’m not a dog, Inquisitor. Although I will admit you were a sight to behold; covered in mud and hobbling up the stairs as you did, I was truly breathless.”

Ronan laughs at that, and it’s such a rare, rich sound that Dorian positively shivers.

Contrary to popular belief Ronan has quite the sense of humour. He finds a lot of the bustling and insistence for his attention downright hilarious given that a few months ago half the people bending their knees for him would have just as likely spat at him; not just for being a Dalish Elf, but for having the gal to be _proud_ of it.

His humour, however, gets a little lost in translation. He’s so deadpan that when he jokes people stumble over themselves trying to figure out whether he’s serious or not. Dorian loves it; loves the smothered curve of his lips and the careless tilt of his neck as he delights in the people fumbling around him.

His laugh, however, is still a precious, coveted thing and Dorian hordes each and every one desperately to himself.

They pass by Solas who raises his brows at them but does not comment and out into the hall where, if possible, even more onlookers have gathered than is typical. Word of Ronan’s return has clearly gotten around, and Dorian can see the eyes following him as they walk, hear the faint whispers that trail behind them.

Under the force of so many eyes Dorian hesitates and withdraws the hand he’d settled on the small of Ronan’s back to guide him as they walk. Ronan glances curiously over his shoulder at him and Dorian strives not to give himself away in the sudden stiffness of his shoulders.

“As popular as ever, I see,” he says, waving jovially at a pair of frill-covered Orlesian women standing nearby who have been staring fixatedly at Ronan with eyes that were a little too low aimed to be truly benign.

“What do you mean?” Ronan asks absently, paying no attention to the stares they’re attracting as he unlocks the first door to his quarters. Dorian squints at him dubiously but Ronan just gives him a small smile and nods his head at the door. “Are you coming in or are you angling for a job as my new doormat?”

Dorian stares at him and then glances over his shoulder where half the hall is still busily pretending they’re not watching them. He offers Ronan a smile that feels a little too thin. “Probably not the best idea, my dear, your court are terrible gossips I’m afraid.”

“Dorian,” Ronan says, and there’s iron in his tone. “I haven’t seen you in nearly a month.”

“Well, that’s your fault, isn’t it?” Dorian says lightly, hoping for a smile, but Ronan just frowns deeper.

“We’ll create more talk arguing at my door,” Ronan points out, and before Dorian can so much as blink he steps through the threshold, leaving it open behind him so that Dorian has no choice but to hastily follow and shut it behind him. By the time he turns back Ronan is already off through his private hall and to his quarters.

Dorian hesitates.

The thing between them is still very, very young. They flirted like it was going out of style, had snuck kisses among the bookstacks of the library and in the private confines of Ronan’s rooms. A few times it’d led to getting each other off with hands and mouths and then soft words and tentative imaginings that Dorian still aches to remember.

Ronan has told him that they could have more, but Dorian was still terrifyingly unsure what ‘more’ _meant_.

Slowly, he paces down the hall to Ronan’s room, and although nobody would ever come through to the Inquisitor’s private wing, he shuts that door too.

“Decided to join me after all, did you?” Ronan calls lightly, and Dorian huffs and turns around only to feel any and all words fall from his lips.

Ronan is naked, standing next to the steaming wooden tub settled near his balcony door. His back is to Dorian, head turned slightly to watch him as he slowly braids his white hair to keep it out of the water.

It’s not the first time Dorian’s seen him like this, they’d shared tents, had sparse few nights together, but there’s something to it right now that makes Dorian hot all over. The doors to his balconies are wide open and there’s so much sun in the room, pouring over Ronan’s skin so it goes bronze in the light, turning old scars white and creating silver dimples at the curve of his back, his shoulders, down and down so that Dorian wants to feel each and every knot of his spine beneath his fingertips.

“Dorian?”

Dorian’s attention snaps back up and he realizes that Ronan is smiling at him with dark, knowing eyes. Whatever obliviousness he shows when in the presence of the people outside is gone now, and he turns, holds his head high, completely unashamed and relaxed in his own skin.

“You…” Dorian swallows through a dry throat and takes a few wobbling steps forward as if drawn by magnets and set his hands on Ronan’s bare hips. “You will be the death of me, amatus, I swear.”

Ronan lifts a hand and places it on Dorian’s cheek, smiling up at him fondly. “That is my plan, _emma lath_.”

Dorian laughs and settles a hand on Ronan’s, guiding it off his face to press a kiss into the palm before reaching up and smoothing his thumb along the new cut on his cheek. Without the bandage over it he can see that it’s not too bad, not enough to scar, and although healing magic isn’t his strongest suit he urges it closed.

Ronan’s eyelids flutter and he makes a small noise at the wash of warmth over his skin. He blinks blearily up at Dorian. “It would have healed on its own.”

“Probably,” Dorian agrees, “but your face has enough scars to it as it is.”

Ronan laughs again and tilts his head up to snatch a kiss.

After so long without it, the feeling of his lips gives Dorian a giddy start. He uses the hand on Ronan’s face and the one at his hip to draw him in closer, his head going hazy beneath the warmth of the kiss. He feels fourteen all over again, sneaking time with a boy behind the high walls of his family gardens.

Ronan sighs against his lips, breaking the kiss to lean his head against Dorian’s shoulder, hands skating up his chest even as Dorian starts to think that he should perhaps work on getting rid of his clothes soon. “I’ve missed this,” Ronan says.

Dorian places a tentative kiss at the top of his head. He wants to say _me too_ but the words stick in his throat, rough and jagged at the edges.

Ronan presses a kiss against his neck and pulls back. He smiles at Dorian, sliding a hand up and around his neck and into his hair. “Although, I’ve missed having you naked even more.” He pauses, pretends like he’s thinking, and gives Dorian a truly devious smirk. “I mean, technically speaking, I _still_ miss having you naked.”

This time it’s Dorian’s turn to laugh. “You certainly know how to flatter a man out of his clothes,” he says.

Ronan smiles wider. “ _Well_ , if it’s flattery you’re after.” He pushes himself up on his tiptoes so they’re almost the same height and places his lips next to Dorian’s ear to whisper, “ _Ir isala nar skelna sahlin_.”

Dorian hasn’t a clue what that means but he shivers anyway, fingers digging into Ronan’s skin. “And that is?” He asks, trying to keep his voice lofty even as it comes out breathless. “Something sufficiently naughty I hope?”

Ronan pulls back a little and grins. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Dorian closes his eyes and prays to whatever god out there is listening to him. He opens his eyes and manages to grit, “You are being _completely_ unfair,” and then he pulls Ronan forward and kisses him in earnest.

Between them they manage to get Dorian’s shirt off, Ronan’s nimble fingers making quick work of various buckles, and it drops to the floor with considerably less care than Dorian usually allows himself to show, but he couldn’t take his mouth from Ronan’s even if his entire wardrobe was in danger of going up in flame.

“We – we – still need to,” Ronan breaks off for a second in a gasp as Dorian’s teeth scrape down his neck, “we need – _the bath_ , Dorian.”

“Uh huh,” Dorian agrees, hands skimming all over Ronan’s bare skin. He’s about to work on walking him backwards towards the bed when Ronan sighs, hands pushing at Dorian’s chest as he pulls away.

“Dorian,” he says as Dorian tries to chase him as he leans back. Thin fingers spread just above Dorian’s ribs to hold him back. “ _Dorian_.”

“ _Kaffas_ , I heard you the first time,” Dorian groans, as this time he drops his own head to Ronan’s shoulder. “You cannot honestly whisper something like _that_ to me and not intend to follow through.”

Ronan laughs, long and delicious. “You don’t even know what it meant!”

“Because you _cheated_. If I promise to behave myself, will you tell me?”

Ronan hums, fingers combing through Dorian’s hair absently. “Roughly, I suppose it’d translate to _I need you naked right now.”_

Dorian makes a noise he’s not proud of and tilts his head to take the skin of Ronan’s neck between his lips.

“You said you’d behave,” Ronan reminds him, but it comes out more like a stutter than a true warning.

“Yes, that was before you told me what it _meant_.”

Dorian sighs, pulls back a little and looks down at Ronan with so much affection that for a moment he swears he’ll drown in it.

Ronan smiles at him sweetly, or faux-sweetly, perhaps, because there is no way he is unaware of Dorian’s predicament. “Your clothes,” he says, tugging at the waistband of Dorian’s pants, and between them they get them undone and shucked to the ground next to his helplessly wrinkled shirt and Ronan’s leathers.

The bath is only big in that it is not a bucket; it does, after all, need to be dragged back and forth when in and out of use. Still, the fact that Ronan has the privacy of his own bath in a fortress where hundreds of people live is a luxury all of its own, and Dorian only faintly misses the marble monstrosity that had been center place in his private ensuite back in Tevinter.

“You humans are so disproportionate,” Ronan grumbles as they settle in together, crammed so that Ronan is pressed right to Dorian’s chest, legs crossed and resting on the bathtub rim so that if he just bent his legs a little his feet might touch the floor. “Really, what benefit is there to having so much muscle where it’s not needed?”

“There is not a single muscle on this body that isn’t perfectly placed,” Dorian sniffs, rubbing one hand absently over the sharp of Ronan’s hip and the other along his collarbone. “You elves look like one stiff breeze would send you all scampering back to your forests.”

Ronan cranes his head a little, the back of it nestled right up on Dorian’s shoulder, and gives him an incredulous look. “We are _beings_ not _rabbits_ ; we do not _scamper_.”

Dorian smiles at him. “But you have no objection to the forest part?”

Ronan rolls his eyes. “While I despair at your tone, considering I did indeed spend all of my life prior to this end of the world business in one forest or another across the Free Marches I can hardly fault you for factual accuracy.”

“You do have an unerring fondness for trees,” Dorian agrees.

Ronan squints. “You make that sound somewhat _scandalous_. Do you often worry I’m going to leave you for the nicest oak that comes along?” Dorian opens his mouth and Ronan cuts over him. “Do _not_ turn this into a joke about wood.”

Dorian shuts his mouth again and smothers his grin against Ronan’s hair. He’s missed this more than he’d ever care to say. Not the touches, or the skin – although that too, of course – but this easy back and forth banter, the way Ronan draws words out of him without even trying, takes no offense to the things Dorian says and rises to the occasion should Dorian prod him just right.

Maker help him, he’s gone on this elf. He’s half convinced one of these mornings he’ll wake and Ronan’s name will have scribbled itself on the skin over his heart in his sleep. He’s not entirely sure he’d mind, either.

And that – that right there is what terrifies him the most. Not the demons and wraiths and rifts in time and space that are splitting their world apart, but the fact that in amongst all that terror and horror he has found himself more concerned with whatever he can do to keep Ronan by his side.

It is not a feeling Dorian is accustomed to, not one that he can even say for certain he _likes_ at this point. Relationships for Dorian have been fleeting and single-minded. He knows he is an attractive man, at least in body if not personality, and he’s never had trouble working himself in or out of men’s beds, but this thing with Ronan has left him confused and reeling.

Dorian wants Ronan more than he has wanted anything in his life, but Ronan is beautiful and smart and quite literally perfect, and his admirers grow and grow by the day. Dorian knows that it is only a matter of time before whatever awe is keeping them distanced from Ronan fades and then Ronan will have all of the world to pick a partner from.

And Dorian cannot make himself believe that he’d make that cut.

“You’re thinking,” Ronan says, starting Dorian back to the gentle press of his weight against him. He’s twirling the water lazily with one finger, head still at Dorian’s shoulder, eyes closed.

“I often am,” says Dorian.

Ronan cracks an eye open to look at him. “Often,” he says, softer, “it’s about the wrong things.”

Dorian doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing and can’t help but squeeze Ronan just a little bit tighter.

Ronan sighs and sits up so that the water sloshes about around them. With remarkable deftness that Dorian can’t help but admire for a number of reasons he twists, turning around and settling himself so that he’s knelt between Dorian’s legs, looking up at him with dragon gold eyes. He presses the pad of his thumb just above the bridge of Dorian’s nose.

“You’ll give yourself more wrinkles if you keep that up.”

Dorian splutters. “ _More_?”

“Oh, yes. You’ve already got quite the collection.” Ronan smiles at him, and there’s teeth behind it. “Have you been getting enough sleep lately _ma’uth_ , you’re looking a little… tired.”

“If I haven’t been sleeping it’ll have been because I spent too many nights worrying about what danger you’ve gotten into without me there to watch your accident prone back,” Dorian huffs. Unable to help himself though, Dorian asks, only a little anxiously, “I don’t really have wrinkles though, do I?”

Ronan’s smile softens. He moves his hand up to cradle Dorian’s face and his thumb brushes at the corner of his eye. “Only here,” he says. “You’re starting to get crowsfeet.”

Dorian groans. “Am I?”

Ronan continues to stroke along the marks with the soft pad of his thumb. “I like it,” he says shamelessly. “It makes you look… happy. It reminds me that you’ve been smiling more these days.” He looks up beneath his lashes at Dorian. “I’d like to think I might have something to do with that.”

Dorian’s heart swells. “Oh, _amatus,”_ he sighs, taking Ronan’s face in his palms and pressing a kiss first to his nose, then to the edge of his mouth. “I have never smiled so much until I had the pleasure of meeting you.”

Beneath his, Ronan’s lips quirk and he sighs against Dorian’s mouth, tilting his head to kiss him, hands sliding up Dorian's slick arms and around his shoulders.

They kiss for a long, shimmering moment. It’s perfect; the sounds of their lips moving together, the soft splashes of the water around them, even the faint outside sounds leaking in through the open balcony doors. Dorian feels pleasantly hot all over, the steam from the bath leaving him feverish and the heat from Ronan’s fingertips making him shiver.

Dorian’s hands skim down Ronan’s back, rest at the soft curve of his spine just above his ass, pull him closer even as water sloshes out of the bath around them. Ronan makes a soft noise but goes willingly, allows Dorian to ease him up on his knees so he’s straight and tall, a head or so above where Dorian leans languidly back.

Ronan’s skin has gone pink from the water or Dorian or both, chest rising and falling a little harder than before. Like this Dorian can see all of him, the slender cage of his ribs, the beautiful tapered points of his collarbones as droplets cling and fall, the way Dorian’s hands fit perfectly at his waist, stroking his thumbs along his hipbones.

He’s hard, too, and Dorian delights that his touch alone can cause this.

_Maker, he’s beautiful_ , he thinks in awe. 

“Dorian,” Ronan says, neck flushing a lovely red. His hands slide up Dorian’s neck to tug his hair gently.

“Just let me look at you a moment,” Dorian says, smiling up at him as he strokes a hand down Ronan’s thigh, close enough for his fingers to graze the fine hair between his legs.

Ronan makes a small noise and shudders, bites at his lips a little like he often does. A habit leftover from a lifetime of tents and quiet, perhaps. Dorian cannot wait to break him of it, to wheedle all the little sounds out from where Ronan tries so desperately to hide them.

He goes slow, his fingers caressing every piece of Ronan’s skin he can reach, over his hips, up his chest, thumbs skating a little on his nipples as they pass but not lingering, luxuriating in the shaky breath Ronan lets out. He is truly a sight to behold, head back, eyes closed, the loose braid he’d pulled his hair into coming free so it sticks to his sweat-slickened forehead. He moves with Dorian’s touch, just a little, pushing his skin into Dorian’s palms, hips swaying as his fingertips ghost over them.

“Beautiful,” Dorian whispers before he can stop himself.

The breath Ronan gives at that sounds like it catches on the way out. His grip leaves Dorian’s neck to settle over the back of Dorian’s hands where they’re resting just below his ribcage.

“Have you had your fill of looking yet?” Ronan asks. 

Dorian smiles at him and leans up a little to press his lips to the smooth skin over the jut of Ronan’s hipbone. “Never, amatus, never.” He shifts then, pulling Ronan lower even as he eases himself higher, slides a hand up so that he can brush both of their fingers over where he’s hard and flushed.

Ronan’s hips stutter up into the contact and a curse in Elvish slips from his lips. Dorian laughs and pulls their hands away, guiding Ronan’s grip to the back of his head again.

“Dorian,” Ronan says, frustration clear in his voice, “Dorian, I swear, if you don’t –.”

Dorian settles his hands back over the hollows of his hips, bends his head, and takes Ronan into his mouth in the silent space between one breath and the next.

Ronan pulls his hair hard enough to make Dorian groan and it’s entirely worth it for the way Ronan immediately has to throw out a hand to brace himself on the bathtub edge. There is nowhere near enough room to do anything like this in the bathtub, but Dorian is well acquainted with small spaces and desperate fumblings, and he holds himself steady, one hand fisted around the base of Ronan’s cock as he uses the fingertips of his other to burn his touch into the bronze skin beneath it.

“Dorian, _ma’uth_ ,” Ronan groans, and it seems like he has more to say but Dorian tightens his grip and introduces just the barest graze of teeth and all of Ronan’s words fall away into hair pulling and mumbling.

Maker, does Dorian love this. The feeling of Ronan’s hands in his hair, Dorian’s fingers spread at his hips, mouth between his thighs and feeling every heated twitch on his tongue, hearing every quiet sound that Ronan makes above him. Dorian would do this all day if he could, maybe not in the bathtub exactly, but he’d take anywhere with Ronan hot and bitter in his mouth.

“That’s – yeah,” Ronan sighs and Dorian pulls off for just a moment, stroking him slowly.

“Good?”  He asks, twisting his wrist and making Ronan gasp.

Ronan’s eyes open and he looks positively wretched. With a smile that should not look nearly as sweet as it does he strokes one hand along Dorian’s cheek. “Very good,” he breathes. “Too good, even. I’m afraid you were not joking about that tongue of yours, and this will be over very quickly at this rate.”

Dorian knows he is good with his mouth and his hands, and every other piece of himself he offers, but the compliment still makes him giddy in a way it never has with anybody else.

“That is rather the point, is it not?” He asks, smirking as he bends his neck to press his lips to the tip of Ronan’s cock.

Ronan makes another sound but he pushes away Dorian’s hand. “No,” he says, “it’s not, actually.”

Dorian frowns as Ronan pulls away from his touch, leaving him surprisingly chilled where warm skin had once been. Waves crest and break around him as Ronan steps out of the tub, dripping wet and achingly hard still.

Dorian’s stomach flips at the sight and he sits stupidly still in the bath, unable to remember to do anything but hungrily watch as Ronan stretches a little, unconcerned of the water he’s dripping everywhere. Ronan turns, and raises a brow at Dorian. “Coming?” He asks.

“I was working on it,” Dorian says.

Ronan laughs and holds out his hands, beckoning him.

“I – the bath,” Dorian says dumbly.

“Well,” Ronan says as he reaches out to take Dorian’s hand and guide him up and out of the water, “at this rate we’ll be there all day, and I don’t think you could stomach the wrinkled mess that’d leave you.”

Ronan’s hands settle at Dorian’s elbows and he walks the two of them back towards the bed, smiling as Dorian starts laughing loudly.

“You cannot be serious, amatus. We’re completely soaked! The things we’ll do to your _sheets_!”

“Well,” Ronan drawls as the backs of his legs hit the bed, “I was rather hoping we’d be leaving the sheets in a state regardless.” His smile widens and his grip on Dorian tightens and all of a sudden he drops his weight so that he falls flat to his back, taking Dorian with him.

“Kaffas it all,” Dorian grumbles, breathless and helplessly turned on as Ronan smiles deviously up at him, hair spread about beneath him like a veil. “Do you even know what you do to me, you horridly beautiful creature?”

Ronan laughs and he raises a knee to press between Dorian’s legs. The sensation is so unexpected and welcome that Dorian cannot help but to grind down against it. “Mmhm,” Ronan smiles innocently, “I might have an idea or two, ma’uth.”

Dorian slides both his hands underneath Ronan’s jaw and kisses him for all that he’s worth. He’s terribly aroused and every touch of Ronan’s skin drives him mad, but more than that, he’s overwhelmed in affection, smiles even as he kisses.

Dorian has never had anything like this before, sex has always been good, better than good, but it’s never been what it is with Ronan.

“You are thinking again,” Ronan murmurs as his hands stroke down Dorian’s sides, gently rocking his leg between Dorian’s to keep that delicious friction.

“I can promise you,” Dorian says, a tad breathlessly as Ronan slides his leg so Dorian can grind against his thigh instead, “that this time, it is not about the wrong thing.”

Ronan crooks him a smile that makes Dorian’s gut tighten. “Either way, it looks like I’m not working you hard enough if there’s still room enough up _here_ ,” he pulls Dorian’s hair slightly, dragging his head back, “for thought.”

“And might you have some suggestions? To work me harder?” Dorian gasps loudly as Ronan’s leg pushes up, harder than before, and sends a delightful wave of white washing through him and colouring out his vision for a moment.

“I might,” Ronan says, and Dorian can hear the smirk in his voice the moment before Ronan uses the leg tucked around the back of his own to flip them carelessly, all lithe rouge, elven muscle settling Dorian down on to the mattress before he could get a sound out.

Ronan looms between his legs, hands skimming Dorian’s chest, he leans down and nuzzles at his abs, bites his way with no measure of gentleness to the V of Dorian’s hips, just the way Ronan knows he likes it. He looks up at him, hair tossed over a shoulder, skin wet, lips going red, and asks, “what do you want me to do, ma’uth?” His hand ghosts over Dorian’s stomach and his muscles twitch. “Anything you ask of me, anything at all.”

He’s not touching him, not in the way Dorian needs him to, but Dorian still finds himself losing grip on everything. It’s too much, Ronan’s words and promises, the adoring touches and the sinful flex of his spine, the truly tragic beauty in his every movement. Dorian is overwhelmed by it all, lost in a way he has never been before.

He can’t even begin to name what he wants from Ronan right now and he stares at him, this beautiful, beautiful man.

Ronan’s gaze softens and he crawls his way back up, laying himself along Dorian’s stomach to push kisses beneath his chin, their cocks sliding together in a way that makes Dorian whimper. “Is this too much?” Ronan asks. “I can slow down – or go faster, if that’s what you prefer.”

“No,” Dorian finally manages to choke out, “no, this is just…”

“Intense?” Ronan supplies quietly.

Dorian chuckles a little. “In a word. It’s not what I’m used to.”

Ronan studies him, strokes his fingers along his skin. “But not bad?”

Dorian shakes his head, purposely pushes his hips against Ronan’s just to see his eyelids flutter. “No, amatus, not bad. With you, never bad.”

Ronan’s golden eyes trace him out for a moment and then his face beaks into something that is not a smile, but more earnest, honest, than a smile could be. “I am glad,” he says, “that this is not what you’re used to.”

Dorian’s heart trembles and he works hard to drag the situation back to where he’s comfortable. “Cocky, are we?”

Ronan lets him with a loving kiss just below his ear before sitting up so he’s bundled in Dorian’s lap. “Very,” he admits. Dorian’s dick is caught between Ronan’s own and his inner thigh and Ronan moves, doing something with his hips that leaves Dorian gasping. “With good reason, it’d appear.”

“Do that again,” Dorian does not beg and Ronan smiles at him and does.

The sheets are sticking at his back from the dampness of his skin, but above him Ronan is sleek, gone golden with the water and light, and as Dorian watches a stray drip trails from his brow down his cheek and Ronan’s tongue sneaks out to whisk it away.

“Oh, Maker have mercy,” Dorian wheezes and throws a hand over his eyes before he comes from the warmth and glorious sight above him alone.

“We haven’t even gotten to the interesting part yet, ma’uth,” Ronan reminds him in a voice like silk. He can feel Ronan’s thin fingers trailing along his chest even as he continues to rock them. His touch and the wet sounds between them are making it hard for Dorian to catch his breath.

“And what interesting part would that be?” Dorian asks.

Ronan takes the hand from his face and Dorian is helpless but to watch as Ronan mouths along each of his knuckles. “I was thinking,” Ronan purrs, “that it might be interesting if you were to take me right about now, don’t you think?”

Dorian’s vision goes dark and he curses loudly, strains a little on the bed from the sudden thunder of blood that rushes through him because _damn_ this elf, damn him and his pretty words and his pretty face and the pretty images he puts in Dorian’s head.

Ronan laughs and he reaches down to trail a hand along where Dorian’s cock has gotten considerably wetter. “Did you like the idea of that?”

“Perhaps a little too much,” Dorian admits through clenched teeth. “Ronan, amatus, we don’t have to –.”

“I want to,” Ronan says, cutting over him in a voice that brokers no doubt. He kisses Dorian then and Dorian kisses back with the fumbling pieces of calm he still has. “I have wanted this for much longer than I’ve been allowed it, in fact,” Ronan whispers against his lips.

“Maker’s breath, _you need to stop that_ ,” Dorian growls, fingers digging into Ronan’s shoulders hard enough to bruise. Ronan looks at him, puzzled. “You _will_ make me come before we can even reach that point if you don’t stop with those words of yours.” Ronan opens his mouth to say something else but it all comes spilling out Dorian all at once. “Do you know what you do to me? Truly? What you do to everybody, amatus? All it takes is for one glance of those golden eyes of yours and you could have half Skyhold to their knees!”

Ronan shakes his head and huffs a little laugh. “You are incredibly flattering, ma’uth.”

“It’s true,” Dorian insists, even as he tries to stem the words. “Every day your admirers grow and grow. This castle is all but enchanted with you, half of Thedas is.” He smooths a shaky hand down Ronan’s cheek. “You could have the lot of them, if you wished, and they’d consider themselves lucky to have been chosen at all.”

Ronan frowns, pulls back a little. Dorian lets him, perfectly aware that he’s just about ruined what was the most amazing moment he has yet lived through. “Is that what you think I’d do? Cast you aside for a harem that worships me for something I do not even believe in?”

Dorian does not look him in the eye. “I would not blame you, amatus.”

He thinks that this is where Ronan gets angry at him, or perhaps, even worse, agrees with him. Instead Ronan kisses him, soft, gentle, nothing like the heated touches of before that are still lurking just out of sight. “Dorian,” he says tenderly once he’s pulled back, smoothing a thumb along Dorian’s lip, “I do not call you _ma’uth_ lightly. I can’t ask that you believe me when I say I want nobody but you, but I promise you, I will _make_ you believe before you are done with me.”

“I have no intention of being done with you,” Dorian says instinctively and Ronan smiles.

“Then, perhaps, I will have the chance to prove what you mean to me for a long while yet,” he says, lips at Dorian’s ear. He smirks then, and says, “and besides, I’ve already had the one man I want in Skyhold to his knees.”

“You are infuriating,” Dorian tells him, even as he can feel the thrill of the words and his breath beneath his skin. Ronan grins and slinks back, putting just enough room between them.

“Now, tell me, have you made a decision on fucking me into this bed?”

Dorian laughs, a little hoarsely. “Damn you, yes, if you are willing then I want nothing more.”

Ronan presses a kiss to Dorian’s stomach before pulling away just enough to fumble beside the bed. Dorian watches him fondly, stroking still shaky fingers through his white hair and silently marveling that this is something he is now allowed to have.

“You were prepared for this,” Dorian observes wryly when Ronan straightens up with a small, unmarked container.

Ronan’s mouth twitches as he pushes it into Dorian’s hands. “I may have had hopes that it would not be long before I seduced you like this,” he says, “I am _very_ good at that.” He snatches a kiss from Dorian’s hardly unwilling lips. “How do you want me? I could ride you?”

Dorian considers for a moment, one hand going down Ronan’s back and soaking all the warmth beneath his fingertips. “Tempting,” he says, honestly, because the idea of watching all that skin and muscle work above him makes him shudder, “but for now, on your back.” He skims his hand down Ronan’s leg, settling it just above the curve of his ankle. “You were limping earlier.”

Ronan winces and looks embarrassed. “You noticed that?”

Dorian smiles and pulls himself upright, reverses them so he can ease Ronan back against the sheets instead. Ronan goes willingly, huffing as Dorian can’t help but steal a taste of his collarbone as it passes him by. “I notice most things about you, amatus,” he reminds him fondly.

Ronan tilts his head back and gives a delighted laugh and Dorian almost loses track of himself watching him; the shakes of his shoulders, the dewy glow of his wet skin, the crinkles in the corner of his eyes and the flash of his white teeth.

“You say a lot of pretty things, ma’uth,” Ronan says.

Dorian smiles and settles between his legs as he unscrews the container Ronan had passed him and slicks his fingers. “Only to pretty people, amatus.”

Words between them become few and far between them after that. It’s been a long time since Dorian has done this with anybody and he goes as slow as he can bear, opening Ronan with gentle fingers and a barely restrained patience that manifests in distracted nips along his inner thigh.

Ronan keeps his hands on Dorian’s shoulders, nails digging beneath his skin and making small, delightful sounds once Dorian has eased them past discomfort. Every now and again he lets slip small curses that Dorian burns into his memory to translate later.

“Okay?” Dorian asks when Ronan makes a loud noise he can’t quite muffle by biting his lips. Ronan’s brow furrows and his nails scratch Dorian’s skin. “Do you need me to stop?”

Ronan’s eyes flash open and he manages a barely coherent glare. “You will make me decidedly unhappy if you dare, ma’uth.”

Dorian grins and twists his fingers without warning and Ronan’s eyes go wide, his hands gripping like iron on Dorian’s shoulders, and lets out something that is all but a shout, surprising both of them. Immediately Ronan flushes red and presses a hand over his mouth like he can’t believe that the sound had come from him.

Dorian is delighted. “There, then?”

“Dorian,” Ronan warns breathlessly, but his words turn to stutters as Dorian does it again, his gasp slightly more muffled than before, but only just.

“There,” Dorian confirms, and takes a few long, lingering moments to watch as Ronan curses, fingers scrabbling at skin, head back, hips pushing at Dorian’s hand, straining breathlessly against the bed. He slows down a bit, pulls away and lets Ronan breathe.

“Enough,” Ronan says finally, he pushes weakly at Dorian’s shoulder.

Dorian raises a brow at him. “Are you sure?”

“I am sure that if you keep this up for much longer I won’t last. I want to touch you as well, ma’uth,” Ronan says without an ounce of self-consciousness. He’s hair is a mess, wet at the stomach from precome and shaking in little quivers left over from Dorian’s fingers.

He’s a sight if Dorian has ever seen one and he wants to take this slow, show Ronan the kind of pleasure and reassurance he’s shown Dorian, but it’s all too much and he can’t anymore.

Dorian bends to take Ronan’s mouth as he rearranges himself above him, tasting sweat at his lips, skin feverish hot and hands impatient at Dorian’s back, pulling him closer, nearer, knees bracketing his hips.

“Now,” Ronan hisses, arching a little off the bed to press back against Dorian’s dick. “Dorian, ma’uth, _please_.”

Dorian is as helpless as ever against that and he moves, slow enough to hurt, one hand tucked in the crook of Ronan’s knee to hold his legs open and the other to the pillow beside him. Sweat drips from his nose to fall at Ronan’s collar and he lets out a stream of Tevene.

The pressure, the warmth, the sensation of being _inside_ Ronan is overwhelming. Already his gut is tightening like overworked elastic and he can feel the effort of holding back in his muscles.

Ronan sighs. “Yes, like that.” He slides a hand from Dorian’s back to grip his ass, urging him nearer. “Move, ma’uth.”

Dorian does, slowly at first, then faster, harder, as Ronan’s hands guide him to. Ronan is still tense to touch, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t mind, and he’s whispering things in Dorian’s ear that he can’t catch, a mix of Common and Elven and even some Tevene that he hears in the hiss of the letters jumbling together.

Dorian is burning; friction at his skin, the stretch in his gut, the scrabble of Ronan’s grip on him. He changes the hold he has on Ronan’s thigh, hoists it just that little higher, grinds down just that little deeper and Ronan cries out like he’s winded.

“That – there – _again_ ,” he hisses, hand at the back of Dorian’s neck sliding to fist in his hair, the other raking nails down Dorian’s back with no concern for the skin he catches along the way.

A shudder follows the path Ronan’s fingers have left on his spine and Dorian leans back even as Ronan protests, slides his other hand down Ronan’s stomach where he’s left a mess bellow his belly button and to his dick.

Ronan makes a noise that would have been a groan had there been any breath behind it. “Too much,” he says in a voice that is as frayed at the edges as Dorian feels. “Dorian, ma’uth,” his words fumble as Dorian grinds as deep as he can, and then a long stream of delirious Elvish pours out. He can’t make out half of what he says, but he catches his name, something he recognizes as _yes_ and _please,_ but everything else blurs together at the edges.

The view he has like this is spectacular; Ronan’s thighs parted at Dorian’s waist, the glimpses he has of Ronan’s dick as he works it in his fist, how soaked his skin is at this point from water and sweat and come; the white of his hair to the yellow of his vallaslin to the dark of his skin to the gold of his eyes to the blue of the sheets –

“Maker, you’re glorious,” Dorian gasps because he cannot hold it back. Ronan’s eyelashes flutter as he peers up at him. Dorian lets go of Ronan’s thigh, allowing his knees to tighten at Dorian’s hips, and slides his hand up Ronan’s chest, over the bumps of his ribs, and rests it over his heart.

He can feel it beneath his palm, thundering away like the blood that’s rushing in Dorian’s ears.

Ronan’s head goes back and his mouth opens silently and his whole body strains as he comes.

Dorian feels him twitching in his hand, working him through it gently as the come spills over his knuckles even as he doesn’t stop fucking him, Ronan’s hips pushing off the bed and against Dorian’s with frantic desperation. His hands fumble along Dorian’s arms even as the tension leaves his body.

He’s close, Dorian, and he goes to pull out and away, give Ronan time to come down from his over sensitized high, but Ronan’s legs wrap around his waist.

“Its fine,” he says, voice cracking from too many breaths and not enough air. “I want you to. I want it.”

Dorian’s stomach lurches and it’s over for him, and he clutches at Ronan, hands still slick from Ronan’s come pushing at his waist, his hips, down to hold his legs as Dorian gasps through his orgasm, catching flickering glances of Ronan’s skin, his lips, the smooth lines of his body as the world rocks between colour and nothing.

Ronan’s fingers pass through Dorian’s sweaty hair and he realizes that his head is rested at the valley between Ronan’s ribs.

For a moment they stay still, pressed together with warm, wet skin as they work at catching their breaths. There’s shakes caught beneath Ronan’s skin from the intensity of it all and Dorian feels them beneath his hands, the press of his forehead against Ronan’s sweaty skin.

“Alright?” Ronan asks after the moment between them has stretched.

Dorian chuckles and sits up. Ronan winces as he pulls away but Dorian doesn’t go far, takes Ronan’s hand to press a kiss at his knuckles. “More than alright, I’d say.”

Ronan gives him a tired smile from leaning back on the pillows at the head of the bed. “Good?”

Dorian turns Ronan’s hand over, kisses his palm this time. “I literally could not feel better, amatus.”

Ronan’s smile widens. “Enough so to be persuaded to do this again some time?”

“Perhaps you didn’t understand me earlier, amatus; I’m here for as long as you will have me,” Dorian says, and it’s far too genuine to come out as a joke.

Ronan moves the hand Dorian’s holding to pull him in closer, takes a kiss from his lips like it’s the most precious thing Dorian can offer him.

“I look forward to it then, _ma’uth_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ma'uth: My forever


End file.
